365 Days of Prayer – Day 130 Source – Checked Growth

I had the thought this morning that we are all plugged into the divine. It’s just that some people have forgotten they are connected. Other people know they are connected but still believe in the separation that their way and only their way is the right way. Still other people have chosen to disbelieve in any divine at all, believing that this life is all we’ve got.

What if? What if we are all plugged into the same divine socket? What if we all have the experience to stop our rigorous daily activities and sort it all out? What if?

I have been deeply buried in the garden lately and the life of plants. I have started seeds and nurtured sprouts tenderly transplanting them into bigger containers for the expansion of their roots. I have gone out to the garden which lay fallow last year and yanked other plants -long established perennials- out by their roots. What I observe in my periods of creation and destruction is how closely interactive members of different species are. The intertwining roots of the grasses hold soil in place that the deep tap roots of others descend through to call up the waters. Trees provide needed shade to some and cut off the beneficial sunlight to others. Each plant being has its place in the natural cycle and different species chemical output or waste is what another needs to live.

Aren’t people better when we live like the plants? I like the variety of colors and races and those who feel and those who think and those who explain clearly with words and others communicate with a paintbrush, dance, or poetry. We brush up against one another in life, hardly knowing where each of us puts our taproots down -at work, or at home, or in country of origin- but we all take away a little something, a root, a cord, a kind of influence that makes life a bit richer for all of us.

Plants cry out, so to save them pain, I explained that it was only in the garden spaces that I was ending life for their kind. Their bodies were lovingly placed upon my compost pile to break down for fertilizing other plantings later. Their species mates stand tall around my fenced in garden, flowering heads standing silent vigil to those who passed so that the food I am raising for my family’s sustenance during the coming winter might have its own sustenance for this summer of its life.

What if we all have the experience to stop our rigorous daily activities and sort it all out? Oh! That’s right, we have. The COVID-19 pandemic has put a sudden stop to activities in the world. What will we emerge with?

During my garden musings, I have had to destroy life in order to make room for another kind of life. I would not have time to garden if it were not for this pandemic, but I never asked that such a nasty virus would wipe out human life at such a destructive level as it has. This virus engages my compassion even as it engages my sense of the expedient. Both realisms are necessary. Continuous growth is a fallacy, as at some point unchecked growth becomes a cancer. The forces of breakdown and decay are as necessary to life as growth, because without balance we lack those things needful to the spirit. We need art, contemplation, reflection, beauty, time for the work of our hands, because all of these things feed our souls.

The garden is a quiet place where I can find equanimity amidst the song of birds and the quiet hum of bees. Bees! I am glad to see bees and the resurgence of nature’s life even as human industry has had to slow down.

Creator, I find only two words adequate for today’s blessings. Thank you!

Author: Susan Hintz-Epstein

I am an artist, an intuitive Rune interpreter, a Reiki master, Mesa carrier, and student of the soul. Personally, my best answers to the question of life have come from my relationships, Nature, the Gurdjieff work, and a practical meditative/prayer life. Currently I am writing a book on my experiences with the Norns, Scandinavian goddesses of Destiny, and Hela, called Goddesses of the Nitty Gritty: Called to the Well of Being.
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